BUDDIES TO COPY HIBEES
Ambitious Ross eyeing Hibs’ route to Premiership glory and vowing his Saints have cash to splash
JACK ROSS will use the inspirational work of Derek McInnes and Neil Lennon to target the Premiership’s top six.
And the St Mirren boss believes the rare top-flight opportunity to spend hard cash may help realise lofty ambitions.
Ross has been able to savour a Championship title success and a PFA Manager of the Year award but the past is gone and he’s targeting the future and the next step for the Paisley outfit.
Survival is naturally the normal first aim for any promoted boss. But Ross wants more. His board want more and so do the supporters.
Realism is a huge part of Ross’s make-up but he also knows what can be done having seen some gaffers before him prove success can be achieved.
Hibs, who won the Championship last term, are now fighting for second spot in the top tier and the Saints boss has no intention of going into the Premiership looking merely at survival.
Ross said: “There’s loads of clubs that have come up and done well.
“I spoke to Derek McInnes and when he took St Johnstone up they finished in the top six in their first season. We were chatting about making the step from winning the Championship to the next league.
“Hibs have done outstandingly well this term.
“We’ll set realistic ambitions. Surviving in the league for me is realistic but it’s not ambitious.
“We did that this year, we set the target to win the league.
“People from outside might have said St Mirren will do okay but won’t win the league.
“So for us it’s about finding that balance. If you set players an unrealistic target they won’t buy into it. But if you set a big one and they think we can get there then it works.
“The chairman has already said he wants to finish in the top six. As I’m immersed in it and live it day to day sometimes you don’t realise how far the club has come in a short period of time.
“It has been a dramatic transformation but the experiences of last season have laid the foundation for this one.
“We tried to create a mentality where we must win games because that’s what championship-winning teams do. We had to do that for the last four months of last season to stay in the league.
“We tried to continue that and even going to the Premiership next season you’ve got to try to foster the same thing to the players.”
Mentality can of course only do so much. Tactical acumen, hard work and luck all play parts but the foundations are built on playing staff.
Ross is already eyeing targets and improvements and feels he’s in a strong position to acquire some impressive fresh faces.
He said: “James Fowler and I built a squad to win the Championship, now we’ve got to build a squad we feel can be progressive in the Premiership – not just a squad to stay in the league.
“It doesn’t matter how good the coach and manager is as it’s your players who make you ultimately.
“I’m at a club that have things that are attractive about it.
“We’ve got a good infrastructure in terms of the stadium and the training ground, that’s massive for me because of the way we work as a coaching team, and there’s locations.
“Resources improve because you’re in the top flight so there is a lot of things that help us attract players.”
Ross may even be in the
enviable position of having funds to spend. He said: “There’s very few transfer fees paid for players. “When managers look at their budget they only look at it from a salary point of view. “It’s something I’ve been discussing with the club because we have generated in my time about £1million in transfer fees between Stevie Mallan, Lewis Morgan and Kyle McAllister.” Should Hibs sell John McGinn more money would arrive into Saints from a sell-on clause and Ross said: “There is an argument to almost ring fence a small amount of money for compensation rather than fees. “There’s a number of players who fall under 23 and are at clubs that wouldn’t require huge amounts of compensation. “So it’s something the club could do as there’s not many actively willing to pay money outwith the bigger ones. “There is an advantage to us if John moves so that’s something that could help us further down the line as well.”
If you set players a big target and they think we can get it, it works JACK ROSS